Every starter had at least one hit and scored one run, except David Ortiz, who went 0-for-5 (now batting .195). ... Drew had four hits, Lowell and Kottaras had three, and Pedroia had three walks to go with his single.

Sox 7th: Singles from Kottaras and Green (5 hits from those two guys today). An ill-advised bunt from Ellsbury forces Kottaras at third. Pedroia smashes a single to left for a run. Ortiz pops to short left (0-for-5). Yook hits a first-pitch, three-run dong to deep left.

Wakefield: 6-7-5-4-3, 94. Only three outs recorded by the outfield.

Sox 6th: With one out Pedroia walks. With two outs, Youkilis walks, Bay singles to center to score FY, and Drew doubles to right (he is 4-for-4), bringing in Yook.

Sox 5th: With two out and no one on, the Sox attack. Drew singles to right, Lowell singles off the Wall, Kottaras doubles to right-center (his second double of the day), scoring one run, and Nick Green pokes a two-run single to right, then gets caught in a 9-3-6-4-5-3 rundown.

1:48 PM: Rain delay in the bottom of the first (large hail-like drops).Wakefield allowed a single and a walk to start the game, but got Beltran to GIDP 4-6-3 and struck out Sheffield. In the Boston half, Ellsbury lined out to center, Pedroia walked -- and the tarp came out.

Making his season debut after missing six weeks with a strained right rotator cuff, Redding gave the Mets a fine outing last Monday in Los Angeles: six innings, two hits and two runs. ... In two career starts in Boston, he is 0-2 with a 12.72 ERA, while the Sox have hit him at a .414 clip.

Those two games came on June 14, 2003 and July 15, 2005 (1-4-6-4-2, Red Sox beat the Yankees 17-1), so take them with a quarter-grain of salt. (NL guys like Drew and Bay have faced him most often.)

That doesn't mean he isn't a chump, though. He is -- and the Sox should pound him into pulp.

The Red Sox and Yankees -- both at 25-18 -- trail Toronto by 0.5. ... Phillies/Yankees at 1:00 and Blue Jays/Atlanta at 1:30.

I have both the album as an MP3, but now the video as well. Interesting. Different. Don Gillis works with Coleman on it and the poem is slightly different.

On other points:

It is impossible to transfer the feelings about the American League team in New York to the National League one. I am unable, except when it is unavoidable such as when they play one another, to call the American League team by its nickname, while I frequently refer to the other New York team as "the Mets."

Growing up a Red Sox fan in the New York area (when I was eight and almost nine years old), I adopted the Mets as my "other team" and rooted them through the 1969 and 1973 World Series as if they were (almost) my team.

That ended after NY's game 6 against Houston when I realized what was about to happen. (Not the WS game 6, of course, but the WS. I wanted them to lose game 6 so that Fernandez had to pitch twice, thinking, wrongly, that he could not pitch to our righties.)

My attempts to restore them as my favorite NL team have never been completely successful or unsuccessful. At the last game of the 162 game season at Shea last year, I was sad only for Mets fans. That there was no NY team in the postseason made me happy.

But I do not hate them. Hate is a strong word and if it applies to a baseball team, they are not it.

The hate that is growing is toward Lugo. I also have had serious reservations about the "great" Paps all season and, though he dodged those bullets before last night, his inability to stay ahead of the count is getting serious. So serious that I think that Bard is up for a reason. (Watch what happens when Smoltz is activated. Bard will not be sent down---either Penny will be traded or a phony injury (to Saito, probably) will be manufactured.)

Barth's evaluation of Papelbon's performance so far is accurate. Papelbon has given up almost as many walks (11) as he has given up in each of the last three seasons (8,15,13). His K rate is still excellent, but he's been getting hit hard (it's not like he's been getting dinked to death with bloop hits). He is very fortunate to have converted the first 16 saves in a row.

That being said, he's not vacating the closer role anytime soon, and I fully expect his form to pick up for the rest of the season.

Globe at 2PM:The heavy showers have let up, the grounds crew is pulling up the tarp and it looks like the delay's ending. Light rain is still falling as the crew pours more dirt on the field to make up for a soggy infield.

GreetingsLL fields - prepped and readyGrandaughter - delivered back to parents after a great Saturday road trip to watch baseball and a sleep over Corona - openedLime - cutPapi - still not helping, damn.Me - in for the afternoon. Gardening will have to wait till after the game.Sox - overdue for a W. Get it done.

Ish, saying different leagues doesn't account for the history. In pre-Mets days (pre L-girl days too, I will add), the Dodgers and Giants in the NL and the Yankees in the AL were bitter rivals, fans chose sides and there was no middle ground.

A lot of that came over with the Mets. They are rivals for the city's fans. It can be very bitter.

It's almost like saying you root for the Red Sox and the Yankees. No can do.

Hi y'all, I don't see many games, living in the southwest and not having mlb.com, but everytime I do see one (today it's on TBS) it seems like Green is caught in a rundown when he tries to stretch a single into a double with men on base. How many times has that happened this year? Hope we can hold the lead, and that the Phils can hold THEIR lead, unlike yesterday or the day before when they gave up 3 in the 9th.

Yesterday the Mets announcers were going on about all the crazy stuff their lousy infield has gone through. This included leaving a gloves in the car, someone else bringing the wrong glove, and having to get a different glove Fedexed to someone. They were laughing, but if I were a Mets fans, I wouldn't be laughing!